Quality, low cost... and fast! Are they really incompatible? In the world of digital production, everyone has seen this Venn diagram showing 3 interlocking circles (Good / Fast / Cheap) that are supposedly incompatible. Clearly, this is FALSE!
In any case, it's very simplistic. Revisiting the presentation of our emailing agencyI've even made a dedicated slide on the subject!
Produce inexpensive emails, on crazy deadlines, with a high level of quality
Having your cake and eating it too, my good man! As an advertiser, it goes without saying that the ideal agency should be able to manage all 3 aspects simultaneously. Why deprive yourself if some agencies promise the Holy Grail?
But it's worth breaking down what these 3 criteria mean:
- Good It's important to distinguish between good practice and best practice. In one case, there's the idea of sufficiency, in the other, the idea of perfection. In email, it's all a question of balance: you have to balance the two (email customers of different generations), dark mode, eco-design, ...). Quality must always be considered in the gracious degradation framework.
- Not expensive : Cheap... or the right price. Price in email design is largely linked to the cursor you place between customization and industrialization. The time spent on an e-mail can easily be divided by 10, depending on the situation.
- Fast : I've saved it for last 😉 Email is one of the most neglected media in communications. It's the one we prepare last, the one we rush through. So yes, we'd like to be able to anticipate. But very often, the brief arrives 48 hours before it's sent out. And that's non-negotiable.
What does this mean for email campaign production?
I have one word for you: preparation.
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Improving the quality and speed of email production without increasing costs (or even reducing them) requires investment in preparation.
I did say invest. That means spending money before the project even gets off the ground and the first email goes out. So, yes, it's going to cost a bit of money. But for a good reason: to improve quality, improve consistency, respect best practices, increase production speed, reduce unit production costs.
The preparation can be of different types:
- Creation of emailing brief template made to measure
- Coaching and emailing training customers
- Design system email
- Use of email development frameworks
- Setting up an email builder
- Setting up an editorial charter
- …
All this is not a waste of time! In the long term, it saves time, money and quality.
To find out more on this subject, read our guide to industrializing email template creation.
